“In the heat of the cypher I was not liable…”
The BET Hip Hop Awards returned to television last night. The Award show provides the network’s biggest saving grace ever, the annual BET Cypher. Pulling out all the stops, or at least the majority of them, BET fielded perhaps its most impressive lineup of emcees spitting over sounds provided by DJ Premier. Taking place in 3 parts, BET hosted rapper combinations of Nicki Minaj, Buckshot, Crown Royal and Joe Budden in Cypher number one. Wale teamed up with Nipsey Hussle, Gsan, and KRS One for the second cypher, while the big guns of Mos Def, Black Thought, and Eminem closed out Cypher number 3 (hence the pulling out the stops part). View them all neatly below. Also, and this is pretty fresh, Dre from Nahright ripped the audio and placed all three cyphers into one audio file, which you can download here.
As far as who did what etc… Nobody was down right terrible. Personally my favorites were Joe Budden, Black Thought, and Nicki Minaj. I enjoyed Mos Def and Eminem too, and KRS sonning the cameraman was dope… Come to your own conclusions below.
Nicki Minaj, Buckshot, Crown Royal, Joe Budden
Wale, Buckshot, Nipsey Hussle, Gsan, KRS ONE
Mos Def, Black Thought, Eminem